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Palm debuts Web OS platfrom on Palm Pre smartphone
Palm just premiered its new operating system, Web OS, along with the first phone featuring it, the Palm Pre. The pre is a touchscreen slider with full-QWERTY thumbboard and a mini-trackball for precise pointer control. Under the hood, the handset is powered by a high-performance Texas Instruments OMAP processor and features some innovative hardware, like a wireless charging circuit. The phone's 3.1-inch 320 x 480 touchscreen supports multi-touch input, just like an Apple. In fact, most of the specs look extremely iPhone-competitive, including EV-DO 3G support and 8 GB of built-in flash storage. All the hardware in the world won't make a phone popular without a great OS, but this time it looks like the software is just as strong as the hardware, based on our first look at Web OS.
Web OS is based around a launcher dock, from which you can scroll through a bar of applications with a flick of your finger and pull up the one you're interested in. The motion of on-screen objects is designed to be very fluid; icons pour onscreen in a wave when you pull the launch dock up from within an application. You can multi-task by zooming out of active applications and manipulating them like icons, sliding them off the screen to save and close. A system called Synergy organizes your data and keeps you synced up. It can pull together data from sources like Google and Facebook and present it all in one unified format. Multi-tasking extends to within applications, letting you work with multiple emails drafts at once.
The web browser takes full advantage of the multi-touch screen for gesture input controlling page navigation and zoom levels. Again, the multi-tasking system, based on "cards" representing program windows, works here, letting you keep track of multiple websites at once. Pop-ups from programs running in the background alert you to when tasks have been completed. Palm is opening the Web OS API format to developers, supporting interfaces crafted with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. The Pre is just the first Palm device taking advantage of the new platform, but we're sure to see more handsets soon, if Web OS and the Pre take off like we think they will. The Pre will be available sometime before summer through Sprint, but there's no word yet on its price.Conversations: Phone Scoop - Latest News
, CrunchGear (1 comment) , Ubergizmo , Pocketables , Pocket-lint.co.uk (5 comments) , Gear Live , Gear Diary , Yahoo! News: Technology News -
CES 2009: CEA President Gary Shapiro opening keynote
Consumer Electronics Association President opens the show with an appeal to optimism on the economy thanks to industry innovation.
Although press events already began rolling with a vengeance yesterday, today marks the official opening of the 2009 International CES. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the organization that puts on the show, unveiled an opening keynote from President Gary Shapiro this morning. Shapiro stressed overall that although the consumer electronics industry should certainly be concerned about the poor state of the global economy, he believes it is the power of innovation from the industry itself that can help lead the way out of recession.
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Kogan Agora running Google Android OS on video
The Kogan Agora, the Australian made Google Android-based smartphone that is due for a January 27th release date and was revealed a little over a month ago has now appeared in a YouTube video (embedded above). The minute and thirteen second long video doesn't have any sound or notes, but it does show Android booting rather quickly on the device, and quick clicking around of the interface.
Conversations: Just Another Mobile Phone Blog
, Gizmodo , Boy Genius Report (2 comments) Obsessables: Kogan Agora, Kogan Agora Pro, Android, CES, Kogan Agora
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Best Buy offers refurbished iPhone 3G
Following upon the refurbished iPhone 3Gs available via AT&T, Best Buy is now offering refurbished 3G iPhones from their stores nationwide. All refurbished phones come with a 1-year limited warranty from Best Buy and with all original package contents. Generally refurbished products are either defective products that were sent back to Apple for repair and which have been returned to functioning like-new conditions, or items that were purchased, opened and returned. If you're looking to save on a new iPhone, this may be a good choice for you.
Conversations: bestbuy.com
, MobileBurn.com , eWeek - RSS Feeds , I4U News , DotGizmo: The Best gadget Blog Posts , Infinite Loop , geeksugar (1 comment) , iLounge Obsessables: Apple iPhone 3G, Apple, AT&T, Best Buy, 3G, Apple iPhone
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Eye-Fi to offer direct to YouTube video uploads over WiFi
Eye-Fi, the makers of the SD cards that fit in your current digital cameras and connect over WiFi to upload pictures without connecting to your computer, announced a new move to offer direct to YouTube video uploads today. The new technology hasn't yet been released, but Eye-Fi will be previewing the technology at CES 2009. Once the technology is released, those interested will be able to buy Eye-Fi SD cards for their digital cameras and upload both photos and videos over WiFi without connecting the device to their computers. Eye-Fi intends to make the technology HD video compatible so that HD videos can be uploaded directly to YouTube over an active WiFi connection. Additionally, if you subscribe to Eye-Fi's hotspot service will be able to access 10,000 Wayport and open hotspot locations across the U.S. for uploading videos and pictures while on the go.
See the full press release below.
Conversations: Yahoo! Tech
, Engadget (1 comment) , PC World , Gadgetell -
Cuba gets cell phones at long last
Only 2% of the population yet has a cell phone, and fees are so high even those who do rarely use them, but change is slowly happening.
Can you imagine living without a cell phone at this point? They're built into every part of our lives now. Many people don't even have land lines anymore, and it's hard to imagine what an urban culture without mobile communication would look like. But actually, such a place does exist: Cuba. Only 2% of its citizens have cell phones. Even that number is actually a big stride.For years Fidel Castro's government in Cuba made cell phones available only to foreigners and dignitaries, but earlier this year his brother and successor Raúl finally made them available to the public — at a price far above the average Cuban's monthly income. Last month, prices were cut in half to $58 for the bare-bones Nokia 1112 and $65 for activation. However in Cuba, one of the last remaining communist states (and a country kept in economic depression by a trade embargo by the United States), the average worker earns only $21.44 per month, so many save for months to be able to buy one of these luxuries.
Once they buy them, they hardly use them. Local calls cost 65 cents per minute, and a long distance call to Europe goes through at $5.85 per minute. Text messaging, however, is very popular, and the phones are used like pagers; a call is placed, a number is left, but no one does any talking.
Still, according to an article in the Washington Post, the flood gates are opening as much as they can in a place like Cuba, and the culture will soon be transformed just like North America and Europe have been over the past 20 years. Puts that decision between the iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1 in perspective, doesn't it?
Conversations: washingtonpost.com
, textually.org , Switched Obsessables: Nokia
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iTunes Music Store going DRM-free
Macworld keynote announcements also include price changes and 3G downloads available for iPhone.
Good news from today's Macworld Expo keynote: the iTunes Music Store is finally going DRM-free. You'll no longer be locked into the madness of digital right management when downloading tracks from the store by the end of this quarter — right now 8 of the 10 million songs are available without DRM, with the remainder of the tracks ditching the DRM by the end of March.With tracks reportedly available at higher quality as well, Apple's Senior VP of Product Marketing Phil Schiller also announced new pricing tiers for downloads: $0.69, $0.99, or $1.29. The final update to the iTunes family included the news that the iTunes WiFi Music Store accessible from the iPhone is now simply the same iTunes Music Store accessible from your computer, with high-speed 3G access to the service available from iPhone 3Gs. The new service is reportedly available today — let us know in the comments if you're as psyched as we are about the disappearance of DRM from the iTMS, OK?
Conversations: AppleInsider (3 comments)
, Telegraph Connected , Yahoo! News: Technology News Obsessables: Apple iPhone 3G, Apple, 3G, DRM, Apple iPhone
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Blaupunkt Hamburg 600i and New Jersey 600i to be first car stereos with internet radio
Blaupunkt and miRoamer have teamed to release what they claim is the first in-dash car stereo able to go online wirelessly and play internet radio stations. Blaupunkt has put together two prototype devices, the Hamburg 600i for single-height dash configurations and the dual-height New Jersey 600i, that utilize your 3G phone's Bluetooth connection to get online and access miRoamer's thousands of internet radio stations. In addition to these already compiled stations, you can have the radio pull playlists you've put together and hosted online, pointing to MP3s and other music files found across the internet.
Since you'll need a 3G phone to take advantage of these radios for now, you could always just access internet radio feeds directly from your handset, piped through to your speakers, but Blaupunkt is banking on the feeling that people would rather access in-car music selections straight from the dash. The radios will first be available only as options for new vehicles, though there should be a way soon to get one of the devices installed in an existing car.Conversations: Ubergizmo
, DotGizmo: The Best gadget Blog Posts , SlipperyBrick.com -
Macworld 2009 Phil Schiller Keynote - LIVE UPDATES
At 12 PM ET Apple's Senior VP of Product Marketing, Phil Schiller will take the stage for the final Macworld keynote by Apple. We'll be updating this post live.
Obsessable's live reverse chronological coverage of Macworld 2009 keynote follows below. Major announcements included a new 17-inch MacBook Pro with non-removable battery which Apple claims will run for 8 hours without a charge, new versions of iLife '09 and iWork '09 with new online collaboration via iWork.com, iTunes Music Store for the iPhone now works over 3G, and a $169 Mac Box Set is available that includes Mac OS X Leopard, iWork '09, and iLife '09.
At 12 PM ET, Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Product Marketing will take the stage for the final Macworld keynote featuring Apple, since the company is withdrawing from future Macworld Conventions. We'll be updating this post live in reverse chronological order with news from the event and find out if our predictions were correct. Refresh for latest news. All times are Eastern.
Conversations: tuaw.com (4 comments)
, macrumorslive.com , engadget.com (10 comments) , Gizmodo , VentureBeat Obsessables: Apple, Geotagging, Apple MacBook Pro 2009, Apple MacBook Pro, Apple GarageBand '09, Apple iLife '09, Apple iMovie '09, Apple iPhoto '09, Apple iWork '09, Apple Keynote '09, Apple Keynote Remote, Apple Numbers '09, Apple Pages '09, iWork.com
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Sprint wants its WiMAX network running in Chicago by end of 2009
The Sprint vice president responsible for the company's WiMAX network told the Chicago Tribune that he hopes to switch on WiMAX coverage in Chicago in the latter half of 2009. WiMAX is a mobile internet technology; it can be used by all kinds of portable electronics from cell phones to laptops to access the internet over a wide-area wireless data network. The wide area in this case would be the city of Chicago. It's arguably similar to your cable or DSL broadband internet connection, but with no wires. Special hardware is needed in a computer or other device to connect, though.
Much of the needed infrastructure is already deployed in Chicago, and the trial run of the tech in Baltimore has gone smoothly enough. Portland, Oregon is also due to receive the service soon, assuming all continues to go well.
Conversations: digg: Tech Popular
, Engadget Mobile , chicagotribune.com
